


Swan Song

by joss80



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Boat Bourbon Basement, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 11:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5664133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joss80/pseuds/joss80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony comes to Gibbs with a hypothetical question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Song

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a response to the news of Michael Weatherly leaving NCIS at the end of this current season. The plot bunnies attacked, and the fic wrote itself. How do we reconcile Tibbs with no more Tony on the show?

The thump of footsteps through the living room above him was slower than usual, almost pensive. There was something calculating in the pause at the top of the stairs, and he knew that someone more inclined towards flowery language might have used the word _pregnant,_ , or said that the universe was holding its breath.

But he knew it was Tony. Didn’t know what in the hell he wanted at 1am, but still, it was Tony. And Tony was dramatic at the best of times. Something in Gibbs’ chest clenched at the familiarity in his thoughts about his SFA, at the inherent and intimate _knowing_ that came with being so close to someone for so long. And if something tried to squeeze into his consciousness along with that, a feeling of guilt or regret or something of that sort, Gibbs was already turning to face the stairs and firmly shut everything down as was his usual M.O.

So Gibbs let him have his pregnant pause, and then squinted upwards as first expensive shoes then expensive trousers and, finally, an expensive suit jacket made their appearance as the man walked slowly down the basement stairs. The handsome face smiled, and a sturdy hand brushed back windblown hair as Tony zeroed in on Gibbs and didn’t even bother with giving the rest of the room a once-over.

Made sense. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been there hundreds of times before.

The man shed his jacket as he approached, hung it almost tenderly over a sawhorse, and leaned himself carefully up against Gibbs’ workbench. 

Smiled again, in his direction.

Gibbs quirked an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth up, and wondered when Tony would break the silence. He didn’t have to wait long.

“You’ve got a good imagination right, Boss?” Tony started, hesitant and quiet.

“What’s this about, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked back, also quiet but cutting to the chase. He didn’t want to scare Tony off of saying whatever he’d come here to say, but beating around the bush wouldn’t do either.

Tony’s eyes flicked to the bottle of Bourbon on the counter, and then he seemed to think better of it.

“I _need_ to talk in the hypothetical, Boss.” Tony’s voice was stronger, almost pleading in its sincerity, and when Gibbs nodded his assent he could see Tony’s eyes lighten. He realized then that some sort of challenge had been accepted, even though he didn’t know yet what it was, and that made him reach for the bottle of Bourbon himself and pour a few fingers into a nearby jar.

“Let’s pretend, for a minute, that I won’t be here anymore. Maybe I get killed in an op, or maybe I get my own team somewhere else, or maybe I go back to Israel after Ziva. How would that make you feel?”

Gibbs narrowed his eyes at Tony and pursed his lips, thinking. “Good luck to you if you go with that last option.” He felt a smile tugging at his lips, but didn’t’ let it get anywhere.

“ _Not_ the point, Boss,” Tony said, frustration clear in his voice. Gibbs could have sworn the man had inched closer in the past twenty seconds, but hadn’t really seen it so couldn’t be sure.

“What _is_ your point, Tony?” Gibbs asked, still humored by the whole thing but getting the slightest bit of an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach. He took a swig of bourbon, just to be safe.

“How would you _feel_ , Jethro,” Tony said, hesitating a bit over using Gibbs’ given name, and Gibbs knew the man was serious then, “if one day I just wasn’t here anymore? Wasn’t in this basement, in the squadroom, on your couch with a beer and a knife and a steak. No more. Dunzo. Tony DiNozzo, out of your life….” Tony trailed off and let out a long sigh, like a giant balloon deflating. “How would you feel?”

“You’re asking me about feelings, Tony?” He needed another swig of bourbon. And he swore Tony was even closer now. What the hell was that about?

“Quit stalling, Jethro. I know you have them,” Tony stated. “It’s not a hard question, really.” His eyes rose to meet Gibbs’ in defiance. “Unless you really wouldn’t give a shit. In which case,” Tony said, and he reached over to pick up his suit jacket, “I don’t know why I’m even here. Not now, not yesterday, the past 15 years.”

Gibbs knew that the hand that suddenly appeared on Tony’s forearm was his, but he wasn’t quite sure how it had got there.

“Wait.”

Tony turned suddenly, shook Gibbs’ hand off of his arm, and crowded him up against his own boat.

“For what, Jethro?”

“You know how I feel about you. You’re my friend, and a damn fine agent,” Gibbs said, the words flowing easily from his mouth but sounding shallow and hollow to his ears. He knew it wouldn’t appease Tony.

“Awesome.” Tony rolled his eyes as he turned away, and there was his hand on Tony’s arm again, accompanied this time by a racing heart and a slight sense of panic. He didn’t know quite how to _fix_ this, whatever it was.

And so Tony spun around again, crowded him against a rough section of the hull, got right up close and in his face this time.

Gibbs didn’t balk, but his heart was doing a mile a minute and he knew he needed to watch that. The green eyes boring into his didn’t let up, and he wasn’t about to be the first to look away. And it made him suddenly angry, this personal space invasion and the implied accusation that he didn’t give a fuck about the man in front of him.

“You really want to know, DiNozzo?” The words came out in a barely-controlled growl, and Tony flinched but didn’t back down. Gibbs’ hand, the one that was still somehow on Tony’s arm, raised up to his shoulder and came to rest against it in an almost vice-like grip. 

“Yes.” Breath brushed across his cheek, unbalancing him for a moment.

That was new. But he regrouped quickly.

“If you died, it would kill me inside.” That hadn’t been too hard to say. He took a deep breath, bracing.

Tony nodded, narrowing his eyes.

“Your own team… you deserve it. Did long ago. I couldn’t fault you that.”

“Feelings, Jethro,” Tony prompted, but his eyes had softened around the edges.

“Sad. Empty. Alone.”

“Alone?”

“That couch you mentioned earlier? There’d be a Tony-shaped hole in it. Same with the team.”

“So, not _just_ professional.”

“It never has been, Tony.” And the truth in his own words made him pause, and actually break eye contact.

“You sure do have a funny way of showing that, Jethro.”

And when he looked back, Tony’s eyes weren’t meeting his either.

“You go after Ziva, that’s your own damn circus,” he whispered, and then couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped.

Tony’s eyes shot back up to his, and then the corners crinkled, and then his face relaxed, and then he was smiling – the kind that showed teeth and scrunched up his cheeks before reaching his eyes.

“Not really considering that one,” Tony admitted.

“But you know something, don’t you?” Gibbs could read between the lines. Tony wasn’t here on a whim, wouldn’t risk this type of behaviour unless he’d reached some sort of tipping point.

“Scuttlebutt...,” Tony paused for effect, which almost had Gibbs chuckling again, “has it that there might be a team lead position opening up soon. Not sure where, and there’s often a lot of lateral transfers and that sort of thing that happens, but… it got me thinking.”

“About moving on?”

“About what life would be like without you in it.” Tony’s eyes were serious again, intense. “And vice versa. What, _hypothetically_ , that would be like.”

“And what did _you_ decide?” Gibbs couldn’t help but wonder, especially with Tony so close that their mutual body heat was starting to make him sweat under Tony’s scrutiny.

Tony reached up to Gibbs’ hand on his shoulder, ran his own hand along the length of Gibbs’ arm, and then down Gibbs’ side to rest at his waist. Gibbs admitted to himself that maybe it wasn’t the scrutiny that was making him warm.

“I decided that you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“So you’re not leaving?” He was a bit confused now, or maybe it was the smell of Tony’s aftershave, so close by on his SFA’s cheek, that was clouding his mind and his words.

“Never said I was leaving. Hypothetical, remember.” The smart-ass grin was back. 

“Damn, you’re infuriating, DiNozzo.” 

“Can we stick with first names, Jethro?” Tony asked, and he tilted his head ever-so-slightly and Gibbs got the distinct impression that he was being considered in the same way that McGee might look at a Nutter Butter.

“Sure.” He tried for easy and casual, but the word almost stuck in his throat. 

“Because,” Tony continued, “I realized there was something I needed to do before I died or moved across the country, or whatever.”

“Oh.” He knew he was really putting his best monosyllabic foot forward, here, only it felt like his worst. Tony didn’t seem to care, though, so maybe it was okay.

“And,” Tony carried on, thoroughly undeterred, “We’ve been standing like this for about ten minutes now, and I’d dare to say that the space between us is in fact _decreasing_ ….”

Gibbs was acutely aware of his heart rate speeding up, his breath becoming shorter and sharper, and he felt the warm tingle of a blush creeping up his cheeks.

Damn. He knew what this was. Knew _exactly_ what it was, what it meant. Knew the truth that, just like Tony had said, he _hadn’t_ made the slightest move to pull away like he would have if Tobias or Tim were standing in Tony’s place.

How the hell had he missed _THAT?_

He steeled himself as much as he could with body heat and aftershave and all the other overwhelming Tony-related things assaulting his senses, and met those green eyes again.

“Okay.”

Tony looked surprised for a second, as if he’d rather expected that he might get a head slap and a firm kick out the door, but then Gibbs watched as Tony nodded, let out a small sigh of resignation, and leaned impossibly more forward.

Gibbs registered that his eyes had drifted closed only a second before warm lips pressed against his, and then his damn hand was moving again, down Tony’s back and puling the younger man closer. And then all thoughts about hands or anything else left him as Tony pulled back and watched him across the five inches between them.

“Okay.” Gibbs whispered a second time, somehow getting the word out past his lips where Tony’s had just been. And then his eyes were closing again and he didn’t give two flying figs about that because Tony’s lips were back, his mouth moving firmly but gently, and Gibbs was momentarily and happily lost in the sensations that were being drawn out of his body.

Tony pulled back again after a minute, and Gibbs found himself more frustrated than anything else. 

“That better not be your Swan Song, Tony,” he warned, the words somehow coming easier now. “You come into my basement, push me against my own boat, and kiss me like _that_ ….”

Tony smiled and dipped his head forward, but dropped a kiss on Gibbs’ cheek on his way to whisper in his ear.

“No matter what happens, I already told you that you can’t get rid of me that easily, Jethro.”

The tingles that sparked and spread like wildfire all the way down his neck and spine to his legs and toes were answer enough for Gibbs. Clearly his body was all over this, and his mind was in a state of endorphin-laden bliss.

“Good.”

Tony dropped another kiss on his cheek on the way back to his lips, but it was Gibbs’ turn to pull – or was it _push?_ \- back.

“Change your mind already?” Tony asked, mixed nervousness and desire clouding his face.

“No,” Gibbs shot back as he shook his head slightly. “But I really do need to put this jar of bourbon down first.”


End file.
